IWM Duxford is known for big stuff – huge buildings housing gigantic bombers and large-scale air shows featuring spectacular fighter planes that roar across
the sky.
In 2007 it opened AirSpace, a £27.9m project that tells the story of aviation in Britain and the Commonwealth and displays more than 30 iconic aircraft, including Concorde and the world war two Spitfire.
But with all this big stuff, it was sometimes difficult to get a sense of the history of the airfield itself and the people who lived and worked there. To rectify this, the museum has opened Historic Duxford, its first new permanent exhibition since AirSpace.
Historic Duxford is very different from AirSpace. It cost just £400,000 and is housed in a small building that was built in the 1930s as a watch office. The intention is to tell the story of everyday life on the RAF airfield from 1918 to 1961.
Local employer
The first thing visitors see is graphic panel that says: “Try to forget that this is the 21st century. Try to forget this is a museum and instead think what it must have been like as a military base.”
Achieving this temporary memory loss is not an easy task, particularly as the next thing you see is that traditional museum interpretive device – an introductory film.
It’s an interesting one though, featuring people talking about the airfield and what it meant to them. For many it was life changing. “In fact, it was where I met my wife,” says one.
Others tell how they came to work at Duxford: “I joined the RAF, truthfully, because the only alternative was going down a coal mine.”
IWM Duxford has a good record of catering for the needs of people with disabilities in its displays and there are subtitles and signing to accompany the videos. I was particularly glad of the subtitles as the sound was not easy to hear when I visited.
Asking visitors to forget they are in a museum is also made difficult by the inclusion of a cartoon character, the museum curator, who is used to guide younger visitors through the exhibition.
He might be appealing to younger visitors, although he is slightly odd looking – young with a lopsided smile, a tie and jazzy trousers and jacket.
The displays themselves are not crammed with objects, which is no bad thing in such a small space. Each item been chosen to illustrate a specific story and there are lots of replica artefacts and other items that visitors can touch.
The displays are divided into two sections: on one side there is the story of the airfield itself and how it changed over time; on the other side are the personal stories of those who lived and worked at Duxford.
There are added layers of information available on touchscreens where visitors can access archive photography and audio and video content.
Personal stories
The side of the displays that focus on the personal stories are divided into sections such as Living at Duxford, Working at Duxford and so on.
Some of the characters will be familiar to visitors, the most famous being Douglas Bader, who lost his legs in a flying accident before world war two but still went on to become an RAF fighter pilot during the conflict.
Items of his clothing are on display as well as footage of him talking about his experiences at Duxford. There is a home-shot film showing Bader off-duty in the 1930s and memories of his RAF colleagues, not all of them complimentary.
Other characters are less well-known, such as Muriel Vera Derby, a member of the Women’s RAF at Duxford in the first world war.
There are lots of interactives that support the displays. These range from the straightforward (phones you pick up to listen to oral history recordings) to the complex (a tabletop projection of the whole airfield, where visitors can access more information about specific areas).
Airfield trail
The exhibition is not the only part of Historic Duxford. One of the aims is to get visitors exploring the site so the museum has created a trail that takes people to various points around the airfield.
Information posts have been created at each point, with some of them offering audio recording of veterans talking about the location. Others use historic photographs to place the location in the past.
Historic Duxford is a quite a traditional museum experience and visitors won’t really get a sense of the horror or complexity of war.
But that is obviously not the aim – the displays are firmly aimed at the museum’s family audience and will provide these visitors with a much better sense of Duxford as a place and some of the stories of those who lived and worked there.
the sky.
In 2007 it opened AirSpace, a £27.9m project that tells the story of aviation in Britain and the Commonwealth and displays more than 30 iconic aircraft, including Concorde and the world war two Spitfire.
But with all this big stuff, it was sometimes difficult to get a sense of the history of the airfield itself and the people who lived and worked there. To rectify this, the museum has opened Historic Duxford, its first new permanent exhibition since AirSpace.
Historic Duxford is very different from AirSpace. It cost just £400,000 and is housed in a small building that was built in the 1930s as a watch office. The intention is to tell the story of everyday life on the RAF airfield from 1918 to 1961.
Local employer
The first thing visitors see is graphic panel that says: “Try to forget that this is the 21st century. Try to forget this is a museum and instead think what it must have been like as a military base.”
Achieving this temporary memory loss is not an easy task, particularly as the next thing you see is that traditional museum interpretive device – an introductory film.
It’s an interesting one though, featuring people talking about the airfield and what it meant to them. For many it was life changing. “In fact, it was where I met my wife,” says one.
Others tell how they came to work at Duxford: “I joined the RAF, truthfully, because the only alternative was going down a coal mine.”
IWM Duxford has a good record of catering for the needs of people with disabilities in its displays and there are subtitles and signing to accompany the videos. I was particularly glad of the subtitles as the sound was not easy to hear when I visited.
Asking visitors to forget they are in a museum is also made difficult by the inclusion of a cartoon character, the museum curator, who is used to guide younger visitors through the exhibition.
He might be appealing to younger visitors, although he is slightly odd looking – young with a lopsided smile, a tie and jazzy trousers and jacket.
The displays themselves are not crammed with objects, which is no bad thing in such a small space. Each item been chosen to illustrate a specific story and there are lots of replica artefacts and other items that visitors can touch.
The displays are divided into two sections: on one side there is the story of the airfield itself and how it changed over time; on the other side are the personal stories of those who lived and worked at Duxford.
There are added layers of information available on touchscreens where visitors can access archive photography and audio and video content.
Personal stories
The side of the displays that focus on the personal stories are divided into sections such as Living at Duxford, Working at Duxford and so on.
Some of the characters will be familiar to visitors, the most famous being Douglas Bader, who lost his legs in a flying accident before world war two but still went on to become an RAF fighter pilot during the conflict.
Items of his clothing are on display as well as footage of him talking about his experiences at Duxford. There is a home-shot film showing Bader off-duty in the 1930s and memories of his RAF colleagues, not all of them complimentary.
Other characters are less well-known, such as Muriel Vera Derby, a member of the Women’s RAF at Duxford in the first world war.
There are lots of interactives that support the displays. These range from the straightforward (phones you pick up to listen to oral history recordings) to the complex (a tabletop projection of the whole airfield, where visitors can access more information about specific areas).
Airfield trail
The exhibition is not the only part of Historic Duxford. One of the aims is to get visitors exploring the site so the museum has created a trail that takes people to various points around the airfield.
Information posts have been created at each point, with some of them offering audio recording of veterans talking about the location. Others use historic photographs to place the location in the past.
Historic Duxford is a quite a traditional museum experience and visitors won’t really get a sense of the horror or complexity of war.
But that is obviously not the aim – the displays are firmly aimed at the museum’s family audience and will provide these visitors with a much better sense of Duxford as a place and some of the stories of those who lived and worked there.
Project data
- Cost £400,000
- Main funder IWM
- Exhibition design Met Studio
- Build Paragon Creative; IWM
- AV Heritage Interactive, Ay-Pe; IWM
- Display cases ClickNetherfield
